The power of colors to motivate our behavior.

Prof. Markus Maier (LMU Munich)

2 octobre 2012, 16h, Uni-Mail M5193

Recent color research has documented negative effects of the color red on performance in cognitively demanding tasks mediated by avoidance motivation. In romantic situations however it has been shown that red had approach-like effects on impression formation. Thus, it seems that the motivational meaning of the color red varies with the context in which it is presented. In this talk a theoretical framework, the color-in-context theory, will be presented that might allow to explain the mechanisms underlying the above mentioned findings. One core assumption in this theory is that the meaning of context should not only be reduced to evironmental cues but might primarily be established through internal motivational states of the observer. Several additional studies will be reported ranging from the areas of impression formation to achievement settings in which this proposition was tested. It seems that red can have indeed positive and negative effects on participants’ evaluations depending on the dominant motives of the observer. In sum, context in our view should be understood as an internal state of a perceiver rather than as an external situation. Consequences for an application of context effects in diagnostics and other areas of psychology will be discussed.